First Meetings
by Cira Stones
Summary: Sort-of AU. After crashing landing on Radopolis in oder to throw off Hacker's pursuit of him, Marbles finds himself injuried, stranded, and being cared for by a nine year old Slider. He learns of the child's circumstance and agrees to take him on as his assistant to help him find his father.


Yay! I finally got a story up. Now this may look like my first fanfic, but it's not. I had to delete the others because of some issues on my computer and I didn't save the original files. Anyway, since there are simply not enough Slider centered fics, I decided to write one! Hopefully it's good. Please R&R.

* * *

Dr. Marbles moaned, feeling consciousness coming back to him. Weakly, he pulling himself into an sitting position, wincing in slight pain as he moved. With his eyes closed, he began fingering the injury on his abdomen and his fingers brushed against some bandages. They were soft, but also a bit wet. With blood no doubt.

Opening his eyes, Dr. Marbles scanned the room he was in.

He expected to see the metal panels of Hacker's jail cells. But instead, the walls surrounding him where made of concrete bricks. The rest of the room was different from what he had thought as well. Shelves packed full of boxes and paper. Tables overflowed with metal parts and tools, and a couple of skate boards were pushed up against the one of the walls. A large metal garage door stood across from him on the other side of the room. Marbles remembered crashing in a wooded area, but anything after that was fuzzy. He hadn't seen any buildings or roads when he was going down, so it had seemed unlikely help would reach him before Hacker did. And yet it looked like he had been saved.

"You awake, mister?"

Looking down, Dr. Marbles came face to face with dark blue eyes, staring at him through the bangs of messy brown hair. The little cyborg they belonged to was just barely taller than the table he was sitting on, and probably only half his own height. He looked about nine years old.

"I am." Replied Dr. Marbles. "Hopefully you don't mind my asking, but where is our location?"

The child blinked and didn't move. For a second, Dr. Marbles thought maybe he should rephrase his question until the little boy ran away from the table. Crawling under a nearby counter, he dug out a cardboard box and began searching through it. A minute later he returned with a map of Radopolis, holding it open for him to see.

"Here." He pointed to a small building in the northern east area. The woods he had landed in where about half a mile away. Scanning the scale of the map, he figured the final landing location of his craft was at least a mile and a half into the woods.

"How did I get here?" He asked. "You couldn't possibly have carried me."

The boy pointed back to the skateboards and said, "I used that.". At first Dr. Marbles didn't see how the skateboards could have helped much, but then he saw rope piled next to them, along with the top of a wheel less wagon. He must have used the skateboards in place of proper wheels and pulled him back on it. "I saw you falling out of the sky when I was looking for someone. I thought you mighta died when I finally got to you."

"My physical condition was that damaged?"

"I think it just looked worse than it really is. All of your injuries are cuts and bruises; expect the big cut on your side." The kid folded up the map, placed it back in the box, and disappeared behind a metal storage shelf. Dr. Marbles hear a door open and close, opening and closing again five minutes later. He returned with a tray holding water and some fruit and bread. "You should eat."

"Ah, thank you." The boy smiled a little, making Dr. Marbles feel a bit more comfortable. He ate for a while, watching the child screw on new wheels to one of the skateboards. For one so young, he didn't seem to have any trouble with the tools he used. In fact, he looked quite content while doing his work. But then again, this was Radopolis. Roller blading and riding was almost more natural to its cyborgs then breathing. So repairing their own equipment, even at a young age, was probably common. Still, the doctor felt curious.

"Do you mind if I ask you some questions about yourself?" He asked. The boy shock his head, continuing his work. "Well then, what's your name?"

"Slider. I'm nine years old."

"I'm Dr. Marbles." Slider looked up at him, looking a bit surprised. "Oh, I heard about you from my father." He said. He put down his screw driver and hopped off the table. "He said your one of the smartest cyborg in Cyberspace!"

"How kind of hi.." Dr. Marbles began.

"Do you know where he is?" Slider suddenly asked. He now stood in front of the doctor, staring up at him with hopeful eyes.

"Who? Your father?"

"Yes!"

Dr. Marbles suddenly began to feel a bit worried. "He isn't here with you?"

Slider shock his head and said, "No.". His expression quickly becoming a bit more desperate looking. "He went missing a little over a year ago. After something happened with Hacker."

Hacker?

_"Oh no."_ Thought Dr. Marbles. Quickly he thought back to the years when Hacker was good. He remembered Hacker would often visit to Radopolis and meet up with friend of his. Hacker would always talk about the skating competitions they had been seen and various little gadgets they invented.

But he himself had never met that friend of Hacker's. What was his name?

"Hmm. Coop, I think."

"Yes! Him." Said Slider, looking hopeful again. But underneath that he was desperate for answer or some kind of clue to his father. And Dr. Marbles regretted that he wouldn't be able to give him one.

"I-I'm sorry. But I have no idea where your father is. I don't think I've ever even met him." The look of hope fell from Slider's face. His eyes became sad, mouth closing shut, and he fell silent.

Dr. Marbles wasn't sure what to say, or if there even was something he could say to comfort the boy.

He had been the one to build Hacker in the first place, and though he had never intended for Hacker's descent down the wrong path, he was beginning to feel some responsibility for other's situation. He thought he had been very thorough when contacting those with connections to Hacker; yet it seems he missed some. He should give them some kind of protection, or at least do periodic checks on them. And without some more personal knowledge about the missing cyborg, he doubt he'd be able to calculate any promising locations the cyborg might be since chances were Coop wasn't still on the site.

Dr. Marbles couldn't continue his train of thought though, as the sound of crying reached his ears. Looking down, he saw Slider trying to wipe his tears. But they kept falling faster than he could get them.

"Now, there there." Said Dr. Marbles, getting down from his place on the table to kneel down beside him. "I may not know where he is, but maybe there's something I can do to help you find him." He wrapped his arms around Slider, hugging him as he started crying into his shirt. Slider pulled away slightly, sniffling a little bit.

"Could you make me your assistant?" He asked.

"Assistant? You're a bit too young for something like, don't you think? And why do you want to be my assistant?" He asked.

"If I'm your assistant, then I would be able to travel from cyber site to cyber site and search for my dad myself. And besides.." His voice lowered slightly and he looked away. "If I can do anything to help stop Hacker and keep anyone else from losing someone important to them because of Hacker, then at the very least, I want to do that!"

_"At the very least? From what he just said, he understands there's no guarantee he'll ever find his father." _Thought Dr. Marbles. "Well, alright. But only when you're a bit older, okay?"

Slider nodded, smiling brightly at him. Dr. Marbles wasn't sure he was doing the right thing. Allowing Slider to work for him would only throw the boy in Hacker's way, and that villain wouldn't hesitate hurting him if he thought he needed too. But somehow, Dr. Marbles felt that even if he had said no, Slider would still cross paths with Hacker anyway. At least this way, Dr. Marbles could hopefully teach Slider enough to make it out unscathed.


End file.
